Overview
Spatializing Narrative 7 explores art, technology, and storytelling as tools for reimagining our world. Our panelists/discussants will demonstrate, through their practice, the transformative potential of immersion, participation, and collaboration in creating meaningful experiences. Through application at the intersection of physical and virtual spaces, sensory engagement, and situated embodiment, their work illuminates how the expressive affordances of XR enable new voices and stories to be told.
The event, taking place in Northeastern’s Snell Library and open to the public, will begin with a hands-on exhibition of projects at 9:00 A.M., followed by a lunch. Formal presentations will begin at 1:35 P.M. with a keynote, followed by two panel discussions, and a closing roundtable, finishing at 5:05 P.M. The exhibition will continue after the event.
Spatializing Narrative 7 is presented by the Center for Transformative Media, with support from the College of Art, Media and Design, co-organized by David Tamés and Celia Pearce, and produced by Evelyn O’Donoghue and Claire Ogden.
Schedule
- 9:00 AM — Exhibition opens
- 12:00 PM — Noon Lunch for registered speakers, participants, and staff
- 1:35 PM — Welcome and Opening Remarks
- 1:40 PM — KEYNOTE: Rashin Fahandej: Art as Ecosystem
- 2:25 PM — Break (10 minutes)
- 2:35 PM — Panel 1: Why XR? (In-person, moderated by Celia Pearce) with Wallace Lages, Nathalie Mathé, and Caglar Yildirim
- 3:20 PM — Break (10 minutes)
- 3:30 PM — Panel 2: Narrative, Rhetoric, and Embodiment (in-person with remote panelists, moderated by David Tamés) with Béatrice Lartigue, Mathieu Pradat, and Stephanie Tripp
- 4:15 PM — Break (10 minutes)
- 4:25 PM — Roundtable Discussion
- 5:00 PM — Closing remarks
Speaker Biographies & Abstracts
Bio: Rashin Fahandej is an Iranian-American immersive filmmaker, futurist, and cultural activist. Fahandej’s artistic initiatives are multiyear experimental laboratories for collective radical reimaginations of social systems, using counter-narratives of care and community co-creation to design equitable futures. A proponent of “Art as Ecosystem,” she defines her projects as a “Poetic Cyber Movement for Social Justice,” where art mobilizes a plethora of voices by creating connections between public places and virtual spaces.
Abstract: In her keynote, Rashin Fahandej explores “Art as Ecosystem,” an evolving philosophy and practice rooted in cross-sector collaboration, co-creative processes, and emerging technologies. This framework reimagines social systems by centering marginalized voices, employing immersive storytelling to transform public places and virtual spaces into sites of critical discourse and collective action. Drawing from personal experiences as an Iranian-American artist, educator, and cultural activist, Fahandej’s projects—such as A Father’s Lullaby—serve as models for ways immersive media and participatory storytelling can be leveraged to challenge dominant narratives and traditional power structures. Art as Ecosystem invites us to envision art not as a finite project but as a living, evolving network—where personal and political intersectional realities converge to collectively envision systemic change.
Bio: Wallace Lages is an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Art + Design and the Khoury College of Computer Sciences. His research focuses on user experience of Augmented and Virtual Reality applications. His artistic practice has been part of inaugural exhibitions and has been displayed in Brazil, the United States, Italy, and Singapore. He was also a co-founder of the game design studio Ilusis Interactive Graphics. Prior to joining Northeastern University, Lages was an Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech and Universidad Federal de Minas Gerais. Lages holds a PhD, MS and BS degrees in Computer Science.
Abstract: Lages will talk about his recent work on AR co-located narratives, in which he studied pair dynamics in three AR stories, presented in a large performance space. He will present some of what his team learned regarding the design of these narratives, as well as some of the findings related to the impact of spatialization and interaction in the shared experience.
Bio: Nathalie Mathé is a Professor of the Practice at Northeastern University’s College of Arts, Media and Design in Oakland. She is an award-winning VR creator and the founder of NativeVR, a VR studio crafting unique experiences celebrating diversity. She created UTURN (2017), an interactive 360 comedy raising awareness on the gender gap in the tech industry, presented at Cannes, VRTO, AWE, IVRPA and multiple international festivals. She produced The FriendVR (2022) with artist John Sanborn, a provocative VR experience exhibited at the ZKM Center for Art and Media, in Germany. Dr. Mathe holds a Ph.D. in Computer Sciences and an M.A. in European Media.
Abstract: Mathé will present two of her VR works on interactive narrative and spatialization. She will discuss an impact study done with UTURN, an interactive 360 comedy on gender awareness, and present more informal findings and lessons learnt from The Friend VR, a provocative room-scale immersive experience created in collaboration with video artist John Sanborn.
Bio: Mathieu Pradat is a director working in the field of virtual reality and cinema. His creations such as Encounters, The Roaming, Proxima, have been selected in festivals worldwide. Mathieu Pradat teaches writing and immersive staging at the University Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3 and before at the Ecole Nationale d’Architecture de Versailles, the Universities of Savoie and Bordeaux-Montaigne. He is a laureate of the Villa Albertine and alumni of the MIT Open Documentary Lab. Mathieu Pradat cofounded La prairie productions. He lives in Marseille, is married and has one child.
Abstract: In this talk, Pradat will attempt to delimit what specifically belongs to simulation technologies. He will approach spatialized narration by distinguishing experiences from their content, and the notion of simulacra from that of simulation. He will analyze the territory as a qualified immersive space and show how the spectator is placed in tension between affordance and agentivity, becoming, with his body as interface (as exchange pivot or motor-transistor), the engine of a dynamic that establishes the link between real/virtual actions and the malleable virtual territory. The spectator both provides the context for the simulation, acting on all his senses, and is the driving force behind its ongoing development (or unfolding).
Bio: Caglar Yildirim is an associate teaching professor at the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University. His research focuses on human-computer interaction, mixed reality, data visualization, games, and applied machine learning. Yildirim is a member of the Data Visualization Lab and has served on the Khoury Undergraduate Curriculum Committee and the Khoury MSCS Curriculum Committee at Northeastern.
Abstract: Virtual reality (VR) presents a powerful medium for fostering empathy and perspective-taking by immersing users in lived experiences different from their own. In this talk, Yildirim will discuss a recent project at MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality, focusing on the design and impact of On the Plane, a VR experience that simulates the biases encountered by a Muslim American woman during air travel. Built on computationally-supported roleplaying principles, the simulation allows users to embody different perspectives, including that of the targeted individual, a bystander, or a person exhibiting bias. Drawing on theories of perspective transformation, this talk will discuss how VR can challenge implicit biases, promote critical self-reflection, and serve as a tool for social change.
Bio: Béatrice Lartigue is co-founder of the interdisciplinary collective Lab212. Since 2008, Béatrice has been working on projects at the intersection of art, science and technology. Her work explores the materialisation of invisible physical events, by immersing visitors in a space whose rules are partly written and partly in the making. A critical perspective on the utilisation of technology in a fragile environmental context guides her practice. Béatrice has won several international awards, including from the Sundance Film Festival (New Frontier Selection: Notes on Blindness), the Lumen Prize (Performance Award: Portée/).
Abstract: How through an interactive installation, can we engage the visitors on a deep personal, physical level? Through the project Ombres Blanches, Lartigue will explore the multifaceted challenges of creating an immersive project from its initial conception to its final exhibition. She will delve into key decisions such as selecting the primary medium (water) and the thematic narratives it evokes, the iterative process of designing the physical setup, the modes of interaction envisioned. A journey beyond the mirror, into a project developed in collaboration with a scientific research laboratory.
Bio: Stephanie Tripp is a digital media scholar and artist, and Associate Professor of Communication at The University of Tampa. She was the founding program director of UT’s Master of Arts in Social and Emerging Media program and continues to serve on the graduate faculty. Her scholarly and creative work investigates community identity, collective memory, and knowledge legitimation in the digital age.
Abstract: Is it possible to write an essay using virtual reality, and, if so, what would the experience be like? The Sacred Clearing is an experiment in immersive essay writing that envisions a space personally sacred to Tripp as part of a mediated network of ancient portals to the underworld. Her talk will explore her goals for the experiment, the narrative and rhetorical choices she made in conceiving it, and the tensions, contradictions, and serendipitous discoveries she encountered while developing it.
Organizers
Celia Pearce is a game designer, artist, curator, author, and Professor of Games at Northeastern University. Her books include Playframes (2024), IndieCade: A History—The interdependence of independents (2020) and Communities of Play: Emergent cultures in multiplayer games and virtual worlds (2009). Before entering academia, she worked in the theme park industry, where she learned the craft of spatial storytelling. Her recent creative and scholarly work applies her theme park and online game knowledge to playable theatre.
David Tamés is a media maker whose creative practice focuses on media co-creation and immersive media. David recently completed an MIT Open Documentary Lab Fellowship, conducting research for the book “Mediated Presence: Immersive Experience Design for UX Designers, Filmmakers, Artists, and Content Creators” co-authored with Peter (Zak) Zakrzewski, to be published by Focal Press. He is a teaching professor in the Department of Art + Design at Northeastern University with a joint appointment in Communication Studies. David serves on the board of directors of Filmmaker’s Collaborative and the advisory board of MedVR.